Calendula salve calms summer scrapes

As much as I love summer, my skin just isn’t made for it. It’s fair, dry, porous, and mosquitos consider it the perfect picnic ground. After a day of outdoor activity, I usually come home to count the bites, splinters and scratches I’ve accumulated throughout the day. This leaves me in the never-ending search for the perfect skin salve. So, one day I was in our little community store, and in its very tiny beauty section I found one last small jar of calendula salve that promised to soothe all sorts of skin ailments. I bought it and now I’ve got to say it’s a medicine cabinet staple.

Calendula (edible marigold flowers) is a great medicinal herb and I’ve found that the balm is really great for healing and preventing infections from cuts, scrapes, burns, bug bites or any type of general first aid skin condition — at least for me. I even use it on my dogs’ little scrapes and bites. You can get it at most health food stores or co-ops for around $10-$15 (a little goes a long way) but I think I’m going to try making some homemade salve with this recipe soon. If you’re interested in trying it yourself, you can order the ingredients online or buy them at a local herb shop if your area has one. If my recipe experiment goes well, I’m thinking it would make a great healing gift. I’ll keep you posted on the results!

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